Jerrod Lopes wrote:Respectfully, those who already understand non-self don't need an explanation of the process of rebirth. All they need is to think on it momentarily and it is quite clear in all its anticlimactic and boring glory, IMO.

Many people in the world who believe in re-birthing also believe in Supreme Self, rather than understand non-self.

Perhaps when I'm felling a bit less lazy I'll try and start a thread with a link to an explanation entitled "What Gets Reborn" from another web site I contribute to

Lets hope its not about 2 candles !

Hello Ms. Aloka,

I read that link you put up, and yes, that's how I see it. I should say that's how I see it when I'm mindful of it, etc. I have plenty of dukkha, so I'm still an I despite knowing that there is no I in Jerrod. In truth there's no Jerrod in Jerrod. I've said for several years that we might be better off if our parents didn't give us names. I sometimes think that when monastic ordain they should shed names altogether, but I'm not going to argue with the wisdom of the sangha over that.

As to the candles thing... I don't use that analogy myself... Now I'm so self-conscious.

porpoise wrote:A dustbin is where we put our rubbish with a view to throwing it out. The use of this language points to rejection and skepticism. I think an agnostic would use a phrase like putting these teachings "on the back burner".

It's tough to predict what agnostics will say agnostically, and which phrases they will agnosticize. Your connotative take is one thing, but to assert that your connotative take is the right interpretation of a phrase used by another is a rather odd approach... to then say that agnostics would use phrases which conform to your expectations boggles the mind as well.

I'm assuming also that you are implying you are one of those people too. What is your opinion of the link you provided for Buddhadasa's "Annata and Rebirth"?

No I'm not really meaning to imply anything. My opinion is that the essay at the link makes a lot of sense.

I'm neutral about rebirth, because it has absolutely no relevance to my practice here and now. Whether I believe or disbelieve is just "belief," because its speculation about a distant past or future about which we don't really know anything much at all.

In my view I see rebirth as factual natural process. Most of the confusion I think lies in the term rebirth itself. No one is actually reborn, so.... Yeah, I couldn't agree more that speculation on past and future are a waste of time. This is also why I see rebirth, for lack of a better term, as wonderful motivation to practice well in the present. Then again I may be one of the few who believe nibbana can be realized in this lifetime. I'm just enjoying samsara for now. Thanks for your above post. It does make a lot of sense to me, even if I don't quite see it the same way.

Jerrod Lopes wrote:In my view I see rebirth as factual natural process. Most of the confusion I think lies in the term rebirth itself. No one is actually reborn, so.... Yeah, I couldn't agree more that speculation on past and future are a waste of time. This is also why I see rebirth, for lack of a better term, as wonderful motivation to practice well in the present. Then again I may be one of the few who believe nibbana can be realized in this lifetime. I'm just enjoying samsara for now. Thanks for your above post. It does make a lot of sense to me, even if I don't quite see it the same way.

Yes, I can understand how people need rebirth as a kind of morality system and comforter - and that's fine. I used to be a believer rather than agnostic when I was involved with Tibetan Buddhism, before discovering Ajahn Chah on the internet and then two teachers of his lineage (Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Amaro) at Amaravati in the UK.

Anyway, to conclude,..... like you I certainly believe that Nibanna can be realised in one lifetime!

But Ajahn Chah taught Rebirth, so did Ajahn Sumedho and so does Ajahn Munindo.So your post puzzles me

Aloka wrote:

Jerrod Lopes wrote:In my view I see rebirth as factual natural process. Most of the confusion I think lies in the term rebirth itself. No one is actually reborn, so.... Yeah, I couldn't agree more that speculation on past and future are a waste of time. This is also why I see rebirth, for lack of a better term, as wonderful motivation to practice well in the present. Then again I may be one of the few who believe nibbana can be realized in this lifetime. I'm just enjoying samsara for now. Thanks for your above post. It does make a lot of sense to me, even if I don't quite see it the same way.

Yes, I can understand how people need rebirth as a kind of morality system and comforter - and that's fine. I used to be a believer rather than agnostic when I was involved with Tibetan Buddhism, before discovering Ajahn Chah on the internet and then two teachers of his lineage (Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Amaro) at Amaravati in the UK.

Anyway, to conclude,..... like you I certainly believe that Nibanna can be realised in one lifetime!

“Rebirth,” like “reincarnation,” is a term that’s used generally referring to having gone through a series of different lives, and then there are various views about whether once you get reincarnated into human form where you can go, become a frog again or something like that. I was teaching a retreat in Australia at the Theosophical Society, where people’s views were split. Some held that once you made it to the human level you can’t slide back into a lesser animal one, whereas others insisted that you could. But the truth of the matter is, nobody really knows.

When Ajahn Chah taught about rebirth, he did so in the context of paticcasumappada, or dependent origination. He was talking about the kind of rebirth you can actually witness in daily life; birth is the beginning, death is the ending. How many rebirths have you gone through today, mentally ? What is born dies; what arises, ceases. Rebirth in this sense is actually provable.

In the paticcasamuppada, through desire (tanha) comes attachment (upadana), and then attachment leads to becoming (bhava), becoming leads to rebirth, and rebirth leads to suffering. Jati (birth) is the result of grasping desire. I quite like the idea of reincarnation and rebirth, on a theoretical level. I’ve no bias against it, but it is speculative and it’s conceptual.”

I am not an ArogTer follower, and never have been.I am not a Theravada student but I have been present when Ajahn Sumedho talked about rebirth in a literal sense. And when Ajahn Munindo talked at length about the dynamics of " again becoming ". (Punnabbhava )

Last edited by gendun on Wed Jan 09, 2013 11:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

gendun wrote:I am not an ArogTer follower, and never have been.I am not a Theravada student but I have been present when Ajahn Sumedho talked about rebirth in a literal sense. And when Ajahn Munindo talked at length about the dynamics of " again becoming ".

So what's your point anyway ? Deciding to adopt a "don't know " position about rebirth was my personal decision and nothing to do with any Ajahns.